For the purpose of improving yellowish silver image tone, due to reduced silver content or the use of tabular silver halide grains in black-and-white photographic materials, and specifically in X-ray photographic materials, there has been attempted incorporation of a leuco dye into the photographic material. In recent processing system in which the processing time is greatly shortened and the replenishing rate of the processing solution is reduced, however, there are problems such that the dye forming rate is lowered and desired effects can not be attained. If an incorporation amount of the leuco dye is increased to compensate lowering of its dye forming rate, storage stability of the photographic material is deteriorated, resulting in variation of sensitivity and increased fog density, and therefore it is not a useful means for improvement.
A silver halide photographic material containing a leuco dye is liable to be affected by the activity of the processing solution. Specifically in rapid processing or processing at a low replenishing rate can not be obtained stable sensitometric performance and there is a problem that an image density is lowered, leading to decreased sensitivity and contrast, or to uneven developed density. This deteriorated performance adversely affects radiographic diagnosis, and an improvement thereof is desired.